Sufficient Grace

Earlier this week, Gawker published a story about a dude who had a one night stand with Christine O’Donnell.  O’Donnell responded by calling the story “another example of sexism and slander” in the media.  Notably, she didn’t deny the facts alleged by Gawker (after all, there were pics).

However, what really shocked me about the story was not Christine’s hypocrisy (or even her delightfully tacky ladybug costume), but the fact that pretty much everyone on the left — everyone from the National Organization for Women, to her opponent Chris Coons — stood up for her.

As NOW put it, “sexist, misogynist attacks against women have no place in the electoral process, regardless of a particular candidate’s political ideology.”

Sorry, NOW (and Chris), but as Barney Frank memorably put it: “there’s a right to privacy. But the right to privacy should not be a right to hypocrisy.”

Simply put, Christine O’Donnell has spent an entire career advocating policy positions against same-sex relationships, pornography, and even masturbation.  When someone claims that the government should have the right to decide what I (and 94.3% of men and 84.6% of women my age) do in the privacy of my bedroom, I absolutely have the right to know if they’re acting in good faith.  Doesn’t matter if they’re male, female, or Pat.  This has nothing to do with sexism, or privacy.

And Christine clearly isn’t acting in good faith.  More importantly, she’s the one who opened the door.

I’ve long since learned to take Fox “News” with a truck full of commercial rock salt.  However, if this story is accurate, I’m not happy.  Not at all.  Perhaps I really am becoming a conservative curmudgeon in my old age.

But seriously, my (many and brilliant) First Amendment scholar friends: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”  What am I missing here?